programme notes: Cantiones Sacrae

Sanctified throughout history

The motet may not be the most mediagenic genre in the classical music scene. No soloists seeking the spotlight, no dramatic story lines or orchestral climaxes. But if you listen carefully, you will notice how the elusive form weaves itself surreptitiously like a red line through music history.

Elusive because the motet is notoriously difficult to categorise. 'There is no single range of characteristics to define it in general,' concluded a whole range of academics in the leading reference work The New Grove. A 'piece of music in different parts with words' is the most precise way to describe it, according to musicologist Margaret Bent in the Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music.

Over the years, the genre has evolved considerably. Originally intended for the liturgical context, the motet quickly became a secular piece of music. That said, it was largely – but not exclusively – based on religious texts, usually verses from the bible.

the motet & Heinrich Schütz

So when Heinrich Schütz sets to work on the motet at the beginning of the 17th century, he is building on an already centuries-old tradition. The composer has just made the journey of a lifetime: from the area where he was born, Saxony, to sunny Venice, where he learns the craft from Giovanni Gabrieli. The influences of Schütz's first and only teacher can be heard in the early work Quid commisisti, a moving meditation on the suffering of Christ. The text is still written in Latin, and stylistically the work clearly has some Italian flair: dramatic, chromatic, with dissonances that render the pain and grief almost tangible.

But Schütz soon finds his own way, and certainly in his later German-language motets he makes his mark in history. He makes the text easy to understand – both literally and musically – and does so with a rhetorical flair that earns him the name 'the father of German ecclesiastical music'. In Stehe auf, meine Freundin, based on the text from the Song of Songs, the love for Christ sounds like a soft, almost earthly embrace. Mit dem Amphion zwar is a fun occasion piece, in which scholarship, poetry and bible references are cheerfully blended. And O lieber Herre Gott shows Schütz at his most compact and accomplished: one short prayer, one huge emotion.

the motet & the Bach family

If you wish to know how the motet evolved after this, simply leaf through the Bach family albums. Not immediately to Johann Sebastian, but first a step back in the family tree, to the man whom he will later call his 'Profound Uncle': Johann Christoph. The latter's Fürchte dich nicht is a lesser known gem. The music is simple, but expressive. The text comforting, but unsentimental. It's as if this Johann Bach is aware of the limits of the form – no grandiose architecture here, but a subtle outline of a bible verse. And yet it is precisely these modest works that will later make such a deep impression on the young Johann Sebastian.

He resolutely makes the motet form his own. In Komm, Jesu, komm you can hear everything that makes Bach Bach: the polyphonic craftsmanship, the spiritual profundity, the theological symbolism. The text – unusual in the extreme in that it is not a psalm but a stanza from a poem by Paul Thymich – muses about death as deliverance. Bach is not writing a lamentation but a comforting farewell. The structure is clear: a free opening passage, almost like a personal sigh, followed by a second fugal part, culminating in a minuet on the words 'Du bist der rechte Weg', which is almost an invitation to dance. With this versatility Bach demonstrates that the motet can be more than just an ecclesiastical snack.

“(The motet) lends itself to introspection, silence, but also to subtle grandeur. No wonder it keeps surfacing whenever composers really have something to say.”

- jasper croonen

The Motet Across Generations

After Bach, for a long time it goes quiet. The motet tradition loses ground to greater vocal forms, to the opera, to the choral symphony. In the Romantic movement, songs are also less spiritual, seeking more inspiration from secular poetry. Until Felix Mendelssohn picks up the genre in the 19th century again. Although he did not have a particularly religious upbringing, Mendelssohn threw himself with heart and soul into the Protestant musical tradition, and he sets Psalm 2 to music in Warum toben die Heiden.

'Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.'

In Mendelssohn that threatening text is reflected in the tense polyphony, sharp rhythms and tight imitations. And yet there is no trace of baroque bombast here. Everything remains clear, balanced, classical. The motet is not being reinvented here, but it is being taken seriously once more.

Fast forward one generation and it is Johannes Brahms who reaches for the motet, though he does it very much in his own style. In his Fest- und Gedenksprüche he writes music to three texts from the Old and New Testament. The composer wrote the jubilant work as a result of his recognition as an honorary citizen of his home town Hamburg. As a result the music exudes a certain majestic power. But Brahms would not be Brahms if there were not a double meaning in it. Behind the monumental character there is a dose of melancholy, as if with these bible verses the composer is also trying to hold on to a world that is slowly vanishing. The Hamburg of his youth no longer exists, and maybe that's why he is also casting a musical glance over his shoulder. As if to make it clear to the listener: look what we've lost.

So, in large part, the motet remains – even today with composers like Arvo Pärt and Morten Lauridsen – a timeless form in which composers try to sum up life with all its challenges. It is no coincidence that so many motets have the theme of death, solace and salvation. The form lends itself to introspection, silence, but also to subtle grandeur. No wonder it keeps surfacing whenever composers really have something to say.

text by Jasper Croonen